Rangers Update: 3 Rookies Sent Back to Hartford

By Brandon LeBourveau

March 9th, 2001

As I correctly predicted in my article yesterday, Vitali Yeremeyev was re-assigned to the minors today because of the pickup of veteran goaltender Guy Hebert. Hopefully Yeremeyev can continue his great success in the AHL and work on a few things in his game and improve while he is down there.

The move I didn’t see coming is that the Rangers sent down forward Jeff Ulmer, and called up Michal Grosek. Grosek was sent down in mid-February after the Rangers were unhappy with his lackluster play. Grosek has been on fire in the minors, registering 8 goals and 7 assists in 11 games for the Wolf Pack. I’m not sure whether the Rangers have plans to bring Ulmer back this season, but he sure did impress me in the 13 games that he played, tallying 3 goals. All his goals came from right in front of the net, a spot where the Rangers forwards have seemed to stay away from this season, aside from Adam Graves. I hope Ulmer gets re-called in a couple of games, but if he doesn’t, he’ll have a good opportunity to make the team full-time next season.

As for the Rangers also sending down defenseman Mike Mottau, this was expected. Mottau was called up because of some injuries on the blue-line, but he didn’t dress in any games. The Rangers want him to gain some experience in the AHL playoffs as the Wolf Pack try to win a second straight Calder cup.

These next few days will be interesting as the trade deadline approaches. I would like to see a couple of moves, but I’m gonna be one mad man if the Rangers deal any of their young gems for has-beens like Keith Tkachuk. Stay tuned..